I usually think that it’s a bad decision to design a site to be scrolled horizontally. There are several reasons for wanting to avoid it:
- The browser is optimized for scrolling vertically with keyboard shortcuts.
- While most mouses include a vertical scroll wheel, very few include support for horizontal scrolling.
- Very few users would miss the fact that it is horizontally scrolled.
But if there is one site that makes a good point about horizontal layout is Thinking for a Living. If most monitors are now wide-screen and our eyes evolved to scan the landscape horizontally, maybe it might make sense to design this way.
It’s a bold statement, but being such a content-heavy site and having content worth reading. I encourage you to give it a try and see if your reading experience improves.
Interaction 10 Savannah
Last February, I had the opportunity to speak at IxDA’s Interaction 10 conference in Savannah. It was an amazing conference with some really thought provoking sessions. All of them were recorded and the videos have been posted.